


Hide & Seek

by disapparater



Series: Halloweens [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Halloween, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-25
Updated: 2013-10-25
Packaged: 2017-12-30 10:41:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1017624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/disapparater/pseuds/disapparater
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Draco wants to hide from everyone at his and Harry's Halloween party. And where <i>is</i> Harry, anyway?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hide & Seek

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [day three](http://hd-writers.livejournal.com/254731.html) of hd_writers [Tricks for Treats](http://hd-writers.livejournal.com/253604.html) using all three prompts.

He knew he couldn't stay in there forever, but fuck it, he really wanted to. There was enough room on the floor, if he scrunched up a little bit, to sleep for the night if he needed to. Which he figured he might. It was infeasible, though. At some point during the evening, someone was bound to need the toilet. On balance, Draco found he would rather face the people invading his house rather than wake up with a bad back to find they had shat and pissed all over his house.

Placing his ear against the door, Draco listened carefully for any clues as to what was going on on the other side. He could hear muffled voices, but nothing specific. He unlocked the door and slowly pulled it open. Sticking his head out, he looked up and down the hallway: clear.

Draco dashed across the hall and into the closest room, hoping it would be relatively quiet. After a glance around the dining room, he saw no one. He slumped back against the door and let out a deep breath. It was stressful, creeping around your own house, avoiding the guests you invited over.

How was Draco to know how badly tonight was going to go? When Harry volunteered their house to host an 'intimate' Halloween gathering, after the disaster he caused at the last one, Draco had thought it sounded nice. Just a few close friends, drinks, food, laughs... He'd now learnt his lesson. He made a mental note: multiple numbers of ex-Gryffindors and -Slytherins do not mix well in 'intimate' proximity. Add alcohol and things get nasty.

A spluttering cough shook Draco from his brief respite. He looked again at his surroundings, and this time spotted a ginger head at one end of the dining table. As Draco stood and watched, he saw Weasley stuff handful after handful of food into his mouth. The moment his right hand and been alleviated of its burden, the left was on its way towards his mouth while the right reached out for more food. Draco had told Harry he'd bought more than enough food to feed the whole of Hogwarts, but apparently he was mistaken: Harry had bought just enough food to feed Ron Weasley. No wonder there was no one else in the room; the sight of Weasley stuffing himself was repulsive.

“Are you hungry, by any chance?” Draco couldn't help but ask.

Weasley head whipped up to look at Draco; he obviously hadn't taken his eyes of the food in front of him to see Draco come in.

“'S jus' rilly tassy suf!” was Weasley's unintelligible reply.

“That's wonderful.” Draco had no idea what he was praising. “I'll leave you to it, then.”

He crossed the room at speed, hoping to avoid any crumb or spittle missiles, and swiftly walked through the door to the kitchen. What he found on the other side almost—almost—made Draco turn around, risk the crumbs and spittle, and settle safely in his toilet again.

“Hello, Draco.” She sounded sober, but Draco knew better. “Thank you for throwing a wonderful party.”

“You're welcome.” Draco glanced down at her very full wine glass and the several empty bottles on the table beside her. “I'm glad you approve of my taste in wine.”

She laughed. “Oh, yes, the first few glasses were lovely. After that I began necking them so quickly I barely tasted them.” As if to prove her point, Hermione threw her bushy haired head back and downed the wine in her glass. “Ahh,” was the satisfied sound she made as she proudly replaced her glass on the table. “Where's the rest of your wine, Draco?”

“I, er—I'm not sure, Hermione. I might not have any more.” The truth was Draco had a cellar full, but he didn't want the alcoholic getting her hands on all of it. “Don't you think you've had enough to drink?”

That was the wrong thing to say, Draco knew as soon as it was out of his mouth. He was useless at this. Every three or four weeks a shit-faced Hermione would stumble out of their fireplace, but it was always— _always_ , Draco insisted on it—Harry who dealt with her. Unfortunately, Draco had had no idea where Harry had been all night; he was on his own.

At his gentle suggestion, Hermione's eyes narrowed and her nostrils flared. “I am the smartest woman in this room, Draco. The smartest woman in this _house_. This house that also holds my husband, who is currently eating himself into obesity, diabetes and a heart attack. I think I'll know when I've had enough, and it is not yet. Where. Is. The. Wine?”

Deciding not to point out that she was drinking herself into liver disease, Draco instead said, “I'll just fetch it for you, yeah?” He backed away as quickly as possible into the door that lead to the hallway.

Once he had escaped the kitchen, Draco spent a good few minutes looking at the door to the cellar, but his eyes kept being drawn back to the door to the toilet. He could still...

No he couldn't, because at that moment Pansy burst out of his beloved hideaway sporting a ridiculous mask pushed up on top of her head and cackling. She made straight for the door to the living room, but stopped short when she spotted Draco.

“Draco!” She stage whispered his name across the small space before grasping him around the wrist. “Come with me!”

Before Draco could even open his mouth to respond, he was being dragged through into the subdued living room. This was definitely where the muffled voices he had heard earlier were coming from. There were a few small groups of people around the room, talking amongst themselves. Draco thought the whole atmosphere was dreary and could do with some music.

“It's terrible, isn't it?” Pansy read his thoughts. “I've decided to liven it up.” Perhaps she hadn't read all of Draco's thoughts, because with those words she pulled the mask on top of her head down to cover her face and disillusioned herself.

Draco feared what was to come. He followed Pansy's transparent but blurry figure as much as he could, but he lost her when she moved behind a chair.

The next thing he knew, a small group of people in the far corner squealed and spilled their drinks all over themselves. Draco saw a flash of Pansy's mask and heard her cackle before she was once again lost. After a few minutes the commotion caused calmed down and people went back to their conversations. Draco raised an eyebrow, folded his arms and waited.

Sure enough, not even five minutes later a different group of guests were screaming and cursing and covered in alcohol. This time Pansy's cackle seemed to echo in Draco's head. He closed his eyes and fought off the headache that was coming. At this point he needed Harry to come in, kiss his temple and tell him all Draco had to deal with was Pansy, while Harry would sober up Hermione and give Weasley some Puking Pastilles. When Draco opened his eyes he was still alone. If he wasn't here helping Draco fix this disastrous evening, where the fuck was Harry?

Abandoning Pansy and her unwilling scare victims, Draco left the living room and headed straight for the cellar. If you can't beat them, join them. He'd grab a bottle and join Hermione's piss up in the kitchen.

As he made his way down the cellar steps, he heard a voice. He quickened his pace, worried Hermione had found the cellar already and was drinking him dry. What he found surprised him.

“Luna?”

Luna looked up, her face covered in glitter, and smiled. “Hi, Draco.”

“What are you doing?” As Draco looked around he saw piles of paper, pots of glue, mounds of glitter and dozens of... he wasn't even sure what they were... sculptures?

“I'm making things. Do you want to join me?”

Draco caught sight of a few skull and crossbones on some of the pages and realised what Luna was using as the basis of her 'things'. He was at least glad he wouldn't have to throw them out. It was when a small mewl could be heard from close to the glitter than Draco started to get alarmed.

“Did you cover my cats in glitter?”

“Only Abra,” Luna replied. “Dom preferred the pirate look.” She looked to her left and smiled. Following her gaze, Draco spotted Dom sleeping contently in the corner, a skull and crossbones glued to his back. Draco hoped Luna was using regular glue and not the permanent kind, but couldn't bring himself to ask.

“Right, well, I've got other guests, so, if you're okay here...?”

“Perfectly,” Luna said, immediately turning back to her piles of stuff.

Glad that at least one guest was happy, Draco clutched at a bottle of wine and made for the stairs. Once at the top, Draco didn't need to enter the kitchen to know that Hermione definitely wasn't happy. He could hear her voice, loud and clear, sounding from the dining room.

“Put the chocolate éclair _down_ , Ronald! You've eaten enough! I don't want to have to clean up your vomit or unblock the toilet in the morning!”

Knowing he didn't want to join _that_ conversation, Draco made a last minute change in his plans: he decided to abandon the party entirely. Clutching his bottle of wine like a lifeline, he dashed for the stairs.

Draco decided to hide out in his and Harry's bedroom, and half expected to find Harry already in there, maybe asleep or gazing out of the window, but the room was empty. Sighing, Draco sat on the end of the bed and started to open the wine. He was lifting the bottle to his mouth to take a gulp right from the bottle when he heard a floorboard creak... above him.

He lowered the bottle and cursed. He was going to throttle that git.

As Draco made his way into the attic, he could smell the pumpkin. Once his head was high enough into the room, he gazed around and spotted Harry sitting by one of the small attic windows. Draco climbed fully inside and closed the trapdoor behind him; if Harry was allowed to hide, so was Draco.

He made his way over to Harry, who had the decency to look guilty when Draco found him carving pumpkins in the moonlight.

“How is it down there?” Harry asked, with a forced smile.

“About as bad as you think, considering you're hiding up here.”

“It... it was noisy, and I couldn't face everyone. Not after last year.”

“You idiot; you're the one who invited them!”

“That may have been a mistake... What are they doing?”

“Weasley's eating everything in sight, Hermione's drinking everything in sight and Pansy is scaring everyone in sight. Luna's the only reasonable one down there! And apparently reasonable now means doing arts and crafts with our spare party invitations.” Draco paused. “Also our cats.”

“Our cats are reasonable, or...”

Draco gave Harry a hard look. “Expect to be finding glitter all over the house for months.”

They gazed at one another in mutual dread for a few seconds before Draco remembered the wine.

“Let's worry about that tomorrow,” Draco said. “Summon us some glasses.”

For the rest of the evening Draco drank wine, watched Harry carve pumpkins and didn't give a shit about what was going on downstairs.


End file.
